If I’ve already sold you on Christian (he is pretty funny, but I work for him, so you know, a bit compromised), why not just straight up buy some of his stuff, like CDs and DVDs – and yes, they’re all downloadable before you start with your “ooh, I’m so young, I don’t have a CD player” backchat.

You might also want to like Christian’s Fan Page, where he tends to keep things a bit more factual, gig dates, album releases, that sort of thing. If you just want that kind of info, the fan page is the thing. If you like things a bit more personal, or to interact, friend him up as a person.

Duh. What am I playing at? I’ve gone all this way and not told you that one of the best things you can do with your life is to see Christian live. Seriously. He’s ever so funny. Check out all his dates by clicking here.

Anyway, look, thanks for your time. I’ve probably missed off something really important, so have a click around on the menu bar above. I’d forget my own HTML code if it wasn’t one of my core programming languages! Cheers!

Dear Christian,
With regard to your comments on Renegade Inc.
“What we need now is people who can lead, and solve interesting problems”. Such as: What’s humanity attempting to achieve, and what’s the greatest impediment to attainment of that goal? Uncle Albert (Einstein) observed that: “We shall require a substantially new way of thinking, if (hu)mankind is to survive”. Might an appropriate equation for that be, E(nlightenment) (=)equals (m)ental (c)ertainty (c)hallenged? Consider this: Isn’t a believer someone unwilling/unable to share the infallible methodology they personally used to confirm the accuracy of their own preferred certainty? And isn’t an atheist someone claiming to possess that all-knowing capability entirely exclusive to a supernatural entity, who they incongruously assert is nonexistent? Humans appear able to hold two totally incompatible ideas in their head, without registering the cognitive dissonance (doublethink) concomitant with such an unrealistic, impractical, and paradoxical practice. Fortuitously this is an easily remedied failing. Although not a venture suitable for the fainthearted.
The solution to this situation was identified two and a half millennia ago by the ancient Greek Socrates. Who discovered that asking anyone a series of bespoke questions, prompted them to contradict their own ideological narrative. A breakthrough, which an alarmed establishment ruthlessly suppressed as an existential threat to those without answers. Yet there is nothing magical nor mystical in such a feat. It is simply that all ‘understandings’ of reality are devised by humans. But all humans are fallible. Ergo all human ‘understandings’ of reality are fatally flawed. As a universal generic alternative to said face to face enquiry, try this thought experiment: Take up virtual pen and paper, then reverse engineer the means by which unadulterated reality finds its way into the human brain. Should you determine that it never could, nor ever can, you will have experienced a revelation. If that task proves too onerous, try this:
Q1: Is your understanding of reality 100% correct?
Given that an unwise claim that it is, could quickly be disavowed by the posing of a few elementary enquiries.
Q2: What percentage of that unique personal ‘understanding’ of reality is incorrect?
Posing such queries can result in the creation of a notional void, where untested certainty once held sway. But persisting with that enquiry protocol does identify some potentially potent possibilities, capable of subsuming the newly freed space.
Question A: What is the most important function human beings perform? (Purpose). Potentially there are as many different responses to that as there are individuals to devise them. However nothing entirely dependent nor wholly reliant on the existence of humanity can occur, in the absence of humanity. Including the practice of religion and science. Thereby rendering those two both subservient, to an all encompassing primary requirement and enabler. Thus isn’t the meaning of life, life itself; ensuring continuity of the species? Although even if it is not, and some greater yet undiscovered purpose exists. Does not securing longevity for our kind, constitute an indispensable prerequisite for that endeavour too?
Question B: Why wouldn’t humans appreciate something as elemental as this? Maybe there is some unregistered constructional shortcoming in the human means of perception. If homo sapiens had a passive aperture in their craniums, through which the mind could directly experience reality, probity might theoretically be possible. But cursory examination reveals a series of limited bandwidth active sensors, distorting and encoding one medium into another analogous form. Which a remote and insular decoding device, is charged with decrypting. When we dream we are fully prepared to accept, without question, a ‘reality’ completely confined to the inside of an hermetically sealed enclosure. When we wake we encounter another experience, which can serve as a comparator for that lower level example. However we can never attain a higher level of consciousness, represented by direct connection to actual reality. An all-knowing condition, which would provide the means for crosschecking the accuracy of the wakeful state. Without experiencing this third level consciousness, we cannot but blindly believe that wakefulness is synonymous with the real reality experience. Hence all our ‘realities’ differ from each other, and often confirmable reality itself.
We are missing a (classroom) credo that tells us to think, not what to think. For truth risks nothing from enquiry, as it could only be strengthened by continual verification. Untruth however, dare not permit examination that would inevitably expose it as falsehood. Would that Socrates had ‘corrupted’ our young, by teaching them how to cogently test-question everything. Since our species would thenceforth have effectively been rendered immune, to future infection from all inane ideologies promoted by idiotic ideologues. Best regards, al.

p.s. Even that belief system known as science (all fallible methodologies involve faith), is now belatedly becoming aware of this fundamental design flaw in consciousness. Through enquiries conducted by Dr. David Eagleman and others. Although if (hu)man made global warming is real. Who gifted humanity yet another means to destroy itself, before such enlightenment can occur?

The story I work with is that there is no absolute truth, just interpretations, and maybe our work is to figure out which interpretations are useful and which are not, for a given purpose. And to do that we need to figure out what our aim is, as individuals and communities. Start from there, rinse, repeat.

I’ve put the show we’re talking about on my blog – if you wanted to carry on the chat, maybe we could do it in the comments there? Follow this link, if so: